The Danish Peace Academy

Working paper 1

Flexible double standards policies during the cold war

The Danish Communist magazine
the Time, June 1952. The Danish Communists were against NATO and
against the militarization of Denmark during the Cold War. Artist
unknown.

The cold war in Denmark is the subject of both heated political
debates and historical research. The main Danish contributions to
the iron curtain of the cold war were the membership of NATO and
the American Thule Air Base154.

This goes back to the second world war: 'Bowman’s
territorial group registered the one immediate impact of the War
and Peace Studies upon evolving foreign policy. On March 17, 1940,
the Council submitted a memo, “The Strategic Importance of
Greenland,” advising that, since the Danish outland was
properly a part of the Western Hemisphere, it should be covered by
the Monroe Doctrine. President Roosevelt promptly invited Bowman
for a discussion at the White House, and one day after Nazi Germany
occupied Denmark in April, Roosevelt declared American policy along
the lines proposed by the Council group, including the intent to
establish military bases in Greenland'. Source: CFR: Continuing the
Inquiry, War and Peace.
http://www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/war_peace.html

According to a study by the Norwegian professor Geir Lundestad,
“it is impossible to study American-Danish relations without
bringing in Greenland”155; and the Danish
governments top secret allowances of US nuclear weapons in
Greenland, contradicting the official security policy of no foreign
bases and no nuclear weapons on Danish territory.

This was made possible by a little known Danish-American
agreement, dated January 27, 1950, which article III stated, that
“all military related information between the two governments
should be classified”156.

A new treaty on general security of military information was
made February 27, 1981 after Scandinavian peace researchers
discovered that the American archival rules were more liberal than
their own countries restricted rules157.

The much debated anthology: “Grønland
Middelhavets Perle : Et indblik i amerikansk
atomkrigsforberedelse” from 1983 is one of many samples
of peace researchers who were looking too close into the
politicians cards.

The American's activities in Greenland and Denmark have been
investigated by the Danish Institute of International
Affairs, Greenpeace, Hans M.
Kristensen and others, though not all yet has been said in this
matter, neither by the historians nor the courts158.

The American military facilities in the Faroe Islands during and
after the cold war needs also a closer look.

After Denmark in the spring of 1949 became a member of NATO two
communistic inspired peace organisations were created: the
Danish Peace Conference and the Danish chapter of the
international les Partisans de la Paix159. From March 1950
the Danish Peace Supporters collected signatures to the
World Peace Council’s Stockholm-appeal against nuclear
weapons; while the Danish Peace Conference during the first
part of the cold war in the 1950s held three conferences to get the
labour movement into organised peace work with little success.
Other new initiatives were the Committee on a independent
foreign policy established by the magazine “Frit
Danmark”, Danish chapters of the One World Movement
and Federation demokratique internationale des femmes. The
Federation demokratique internationale des femmes held an
international congress in Copenhagen at the same time as the new
Danish constitution entered into force 1953.

In May 1951
two well-known Danish women, the editor of the magazine "Frit
Danmark / Free Denmark", Kate Fleron and chief librarian Ida
Bachmann was with an international delegation of women in North
Korea. And appalling is their reports submitted in later meetings
on the horrors of war brought upon the Korean people. The
Commission of Inquiry and the journey was organized by the Women's
Democratic World Federation.

A good candidate for the first protest song against nuclear
weapons is the American journalist Vernon Partlow’s Atomic
Blues or Talking Atomic Blues, written in 1945, published and
recorded in 1950 by Sam Hinton. During the Newport 1963 Folk
Festival Sam Hinton made a new recording of the song. In the autumn
of 1953 Atomic Blues was translated into Danish and performed by
actress and jazz singer Lise Ringheim (1926-1994), together with
composer Børge Roger-Henrichsen (1915-1989) in a Saturday
Martine for the Partisans for peace in the Hall of the Student
Union in Copenhagen. Atomic Blues was later published in the
magazine Dialog in November 1953.

Danes protested against West Germany's admission in NATO.

The radical liberal politican Else Zeuthen (1897-1975)
had became member of the executive committee of the
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in
1946. In 1954 Zeuthen was elected chairwomen of the organisation;
also she had become member of the parliament in 1953160.

After the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 the umbrella
organisation Danish Refugee Council was created for the Danish aid
and refugee organisations161.

Both official and private intelligence services surveyed and
recorded opposition groups as well as peace groups during and after
the cold war; contradicting official government policy statements
of March 5, 1947, November 13, 1952 and September 30, 1968 on no
intelligence filings of “lawful political activities”.
As one of many protests against the intelligence services huge
files on political active persons, the Zealand Committee against
the Card Files was established in 1965162. The Danish
intelligence services activities needs more research163.

Notes

154 The concept iron curtain is traced to
the beginning of World War One, where the Swedish politician
Hjalmer Branting uses the concept to describe Germany during the
mobilising in 1914: “The iron curtain went down around the
great military power at the same moment Germany was declared in a
state of war” – a kind of preparation for mobilisation.
At once the isolation became complete”. News were censured by
civilian and military authorities and nobody gets to know what is
happening outside the borders of the realm. Though propaganda the
citizens are given the impression that they are surrounded by
enemies who aspire their lives and during these conditions they
must guard themselves. It is only from this psychological chance,
continues Branting, this mass psychosis, that the sudden change
(the war fever) can come”. Hjalmar, Hjalmer: Arbetarklassen
och världssläget. Stockholm, 1915. Quoted from: Boje,
Andreas: Det tyske Socialdemokrati før og under
Verdenskrigen, 1916 p. 92.

157 Headquarters United States European
Command: Index of International Agreements, 1989.

158 The Danish Institute for International
Affairs has been tasked by the Danish government to prepare a study
(white paper) on the security policy situation of Denmark during
the Cold War 1945-1990. The white paper is expected in 2004.